


What Buddies Know About Love

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Community: satedan_grabass, M/M, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon's making his own future; John's there for him. Ronon thinks it's time to take the next step in their relationship; John has reservations.  Neither of them wants to talk about it, but they do anyway.  (Contains canon pairings).</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Buddies Know About Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluflamingo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/gifts).



> Beta by mific ♥

> Last night on the sports channel  
>  I watched the rodeo.  
>  Those cowboys have it right;  
>  the best and the beauty of it.  
>  You cannot win, so you ride  
>  for as long as you can and enjoy it.  
>  When you dismount,  
>  whether it be on your own or not,  
>  it won’t look pretty. You’ll limp off.  
>  But you’ll feel good; your heart  
>  will be pounding like it never has,  
>  and walking away, one crazy step  
>  after another, your ears will ring  
>  with the loud approval  
>  of those who never felt so good.  
>  ("What Cowboys Know About Love", Louis McKee)

"Hey," Ronon said, and leaned forward over the table, planting his elbows on the surface to show resolve. He also wanted to keep the discussion private, even though he supposed none of the people in the tavern John'd brought him to cared enough to bother eavesdropping. Being here on Earth made him feel as if he had to hide, all the time. "We're buddies, right?"

John's gaze and focus immediately snapped from the recreational flechette practice to Ronon's face, taking in his expression and then the tension Ronon wasn't keeping back. Despite the beer John'd been nursing, he was quick to read the mood as serious and respond with focused attention.

"Yeah. We are," John said, and leaned forward himself, not looking away but looking like he wanted to.

Ronon understood John's wariness; it still pissed him off. Words meant the same things to the Earth people, sometimes; other times the boundaries of usage were so distorted that talking was more frustrating than meaningful. A _buddy_ was a team-mate on Sateda: someone as close as a sibling, someone you trusted with your life. _Buddies_ were equals, and Ronon had thought John was being an asshole mocking the people under his command by calling them _buddy_ instead of _junior comrade_ , even when he very consciously played the role of big brother.

Ronon had told John this after he'd been on Atlantis a while and knew John better. "I'm not calling anyone _comrade_ , thanks," John had said. He'd offered to explain the historical reason for that, but Ronon had refused with a quick disinterested _whatever_. He never really understood John's attempts to explain crap like that.

Teyla's people were traders, and she'd grown up traveling around forming alliances with many cultures. She told Ronon the Athosian saying, "Ten people, ten meanings, one word". She was intrigued by the Earth people's theory that the peoples of Pegasus were actually speaking different languages, or at least widely variant dialects, and that the Stargates somehow made everyone mutually comprehensible… to a certain degree.

"I hate talking," Ronon said now, and John nodded with a sympathetic grimace. "I didn't used to," Ronon went on. He felt like he was wading upriver against the current; it would be easier to give up and shut up and get swept away. "I learned not to think about stuff. The past and the future, what I was feeling. Now that habit's fucking me up."

He could see that John got it by the way John's eyes cut to the side and his fingers drummed on the table next to his glass. "How so?" John asked, dragging his gaze back to Ronon. He looked for a moment the way he had at his father's funeral, lost and hurting, and then he buried that expression under a mask of concern. Ronon got that John felt that there were times he needed to take the responsible older-brother role in his team. John still hadn't forgiven himself for not stopping the Wraith from killing Ronon, and Ronon didn't know how to tell him he didn't want his guilt. "You looking to talk to someone?" John asked. "Like a professional?"

"There's no war here," Ronon said, making a circle with his hand to indicate the tavern, San Francisco, John's country and planet. "Everyone's got a future. Makes me angry. It shouldn't."

"I liked Heightmeyer," John said, keeping his voice slow and deliberate. "She was good at helping get through stuff and not dwelling on it. None of that meditation crap." He tipped his head to the side, obviously embarrassed. "I see de la Cruz sometimes. She gives assignments and sometimes it's like being hit with bricks. Or," and John reached out, jerky like he wanted to pull back, and patted Ronon twice on the arm, "I'm always here. I can listen."

Ronon slapped John in the shoulder. "Yeah, you can _listen_ , Sheppard," he said, letting fondness alleviate the mockery. "You and me, we're eggs in the same burrow."

John blinked and wrapped his glass up in his hand, took a drink. "You could say that," he said, the corners of his eyes folding in a smile. "But I have to tell you, I have no clue what that means."

*

Ronon made some appointments with de la Cruz and hated each one of them, but it was like the way he hated working out with weights. The boredom and repetition sucked, but he had no problems with the results. Ronon said he wanted to learn more about Earth, and de la Cruz got the SGC to let him audit courses at a local school. It was kind of cool, even if a lot of the students were really young for their age.

After a few months, Ronon felt more like choosing his own future wasn't a betrayal of the past, and got Teyla to cut his hair. He didn't need it to carry stuff around on Earth; Woolsey'd made being unarmed a condition of Ronon's permission to leave Atlantis, and Rodney had built a metal detector in his lab expressly for the purpose of demonstrating why concealed knives were a bad idea. Ronon'd been kind of touched by how worried Rodney had been for him.

Teyla did a terrible job, too reluctant to cut too much, and she was apologizing for the third time when Kanaan walked in on them and nearly dropped Torren from laughing so hard. Ronon just grinned back, feeling light and calm, and told him to hand the kid over and do a better job if he could.

He ended up with a crop of short curls, close enough to Kanaan's own that they might have been kin. He thought he looked good. John walked into a wall in shock the first time he saw Ronon's hair, and Ronon laughed at him even as he held out a hand to catch John and to keep him steady.

"New look for you," John said, hand pressed to his bruising forehead, wry expression showing that he knew how stupid it was to try and feign nonchalance now. "Nice. Short," he said, with a nod. "Suits you."

Ronon flipped his eyebrows up. "Your people like short hair," he pointed out, and gave John's own hair a ruffle, then got a good handhold and tugged, using his free hand to push John's away so he could look at the bruise on John's temple. The skin hadn't broken, but the welt was already an angry-looking lump. "You should put ice on that."

"You're not the boss of me," John said. Ronon shook him by the hair, the way children did with their pet _hpdeki_. John called Ronon his uncle, so Ronon let go, because that was the Earth way to do things. "It's embarrassing. Keller threatened me with a frequent patients' card."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ronon said. He walked with John, telling him about his classes and the weird things the local students liked.

"Just don't turn into a lawyer, okay?" John said, showing the nurse on duty his bruise.

"There's not really _law_ to speak of back there," Ronon said, still bitter about being betrayed by the Lantirans.

"Hm," John said, giving Ronon a squinty-eyed look, like he knew something Ronon didn't. But maybe that was just because of the swelling.

*

Ronon invited everyone he knew to his quarters to celebrate when Atlantis finally got cleared to fly back to Pegasus. A lot of people were being reposted. Carter had a new ship, and many Marines who hadn't already been reassigned to the SGC were joining her crew. Ronon told everyone to bring their own beer, because John said that was traditional, but Ronon borrowed the rec-room kitchenette and made bird-meat dumplings and green leaf rolls and spiced nut-grain balls.

"I didn't know you cooked," John said, as he made another circuit of the food table to refill his plate. 

Ronon shrugged and snagged a handful of dumplings, which he added to John's collection. "Teyla got me making baby food for Torren, and I've been remembering stuff." He tipped his chin at the white foam box full of ice and packaged drinks. "You thirsty?"

"I'm good," John said, and then added, "The scientists have pivo." Ronon gave him a blank look. "Beer Radek beamed back from his country. You should try some." John shifted to the side so he wasn't blocking the table and popped a roll into his mouth. He made a pleased noise and gave Ronon the thumbs-up sign of approval, which looked a lot like a really dirty Satedan gesture. "Is Amelia coming?"

Ronon helped himself to one of the meatballs on a stick that Rodney and Jennifer had brought. "Might be by later. She's packing."

"Sucks," John said, swallowing and nodding. "I mean, not her promotion or her assignment with Sam, that's fantastic, but." He rocked his hand in the air. "You and her," he said, not quite a question.

Ronon snorted. "We weren't screwing," he said. He liked speaking bluntly sometimes, because people from John's culture tended to react in funny ways. Like how John's eyes widened and then flicked away.

"Okay," John said, and there was just enough of an edge to his voice that Ronon felt bad for fucking with him.

"We're friends," Ronon clarified. "I didn't know your people had fighters like that. But we're not buddies."

John made a complicated face, like Ronon had said something wrong and he felt it was his duty, as team leader or stand-in big brother, to explain. But in the end all John said was, "You should have friends," emphasized with a sharp nod, and Ronon heard behind those words all the other things John thought he should have – a family, a lover – and John's annoyance at himself for being baited into jealousy.

Ronon shook his head, feeling even more of his hair escape the woven band Teyla'd given him to keep it off his face. He was growing it back loose, for the time being, but he was definitely recalling why curls had annoyed him to begin with. Kanaan had offered to keep trimming it short, but Teyla protested she liked Ronon's hair long. They'd had some kind of partners' argument that Ronon didn't want to know the details of, which resulted in Kanaan letting Ronon be. "Everyone here's my friend," he said, slow like he was explaining stuff to Torren. "But you're the guy who's going to stick around and help me wash the plates when they're gone."

"I wash a mean plate," John said solemnly, and slid off into the crowd, heading for the balcony.

John was a lot drunker by the end of the party, and he'd stripped down to his t-shirt and bare feet. He produced a group of volunteered Marines with boxes to carry all the tableware, and supervised a break-in to the mess hall kitchen with an illicit keycard. When he came back he was alone, looking smug and damp from the sinks. Ronon made him help move all the furniture back into place.

"There," John said, with a final shove at the corner of the bed. He yawned and stretched, glanced at Ronon's wall clock and wrinkled his nose at the time. "When'd it get so late?"

Ronon had just got Woolsey's stereo equipment back into its container, and had been going to return it. "Woolsey's older than you, you think he's already asleep?"

"Hey," John said, looking wounded.

Ronon shoved to his feet and pushed the box to the wall by the door. "It can wait 'til tomorrow."

John yawned again, and rubbed his palms over his arms like he was cold. Ronon snorted and went to close the balcony door.

"My jacket around here? And my boots. Pretty sure I didn't show up like this." John looked down at his toes and frowned.

"Just get in bed," Ronon said. John gave him a look that would have been sharp without the drink and the tiredness. "We share offworld all the time," Ronon pointed out, annoyed by Earth people and their peculiar boundary problems.

"You pinch my nose," John said, accusatory.

"So don't snore." Ronon dug a tube of tooth-creme out of his go-bag and held it up. "You want some?"

John shook his head and sat down on the edge of the bed. Ronon flipped the tube open, sucked out a bean-sized bit of creme and rubbed it over his teeth with his tongue. John made horrified noises and toppled backwards, hands over his face. Ronon turned the lamp off and yanked the fur quilt out from under John, flipping it over the both of them.

"This is weird," John said, shifting around and then apologizing for kicking Ronon with his cold feet.

"Going home's going to be weird," Ronon countered, trying to think how to explain what he was feeling. "There's no fighting here. Thought Earth was boring, but I might miss it."

John sighed. "Earth's got wars like you couldn't imagine." Ronon wanted to argue, but he'd learned in school about what the people of Earth did to each other. "I know what you mean, though. Hard to go back to work after a long vacation." 

Ronon snorted in agreement and closed his eyes. John fell asleep first, and started snoring a few minutes later. Ronon got him to shut up – the nose trick always worked, plus it was funny – and then let his guard down, drifting easily into sleep.

He woke up to the feeling of fingers playing with his hair and found that sometime in the night he'd pillowed his head on John's shoulder. John was warm under him, the slow rise and fall of his chest comforting. Ronon wondered how long he could pretend to be asleep.

Not that long.

"Even without the hair your head's like a bag full of bricks," John said, and tugged at the curl he'd been straightening. "My arm's numb. And you drool."

"I wake you up?" Ronon asked, slapping John's hand away and wiping his mouth on John's shirt. He didn't remember any nightmares, not that he wanted to, but sleeping had been hard again lately.

"Nah," John said, slow and easy, like it wouldn't have been a problem even if Ronon'd shouted and lashed out. "You going to let me up?"

"No," Ronon said, and rolled to his left, catching John's hands and pinning them to the mattress as he settled over him. John's eyes narrowed.

"We should sleep together all the time," Ronon told him. "Think about it."

John shook his head. "I told you a while back, I don't _screw_ guys."

"You don't screw anyone," Ronon pointed out, hoping the words conveyed what he meant. John's language didn't have the right nuances for levels of intimacy, for friends and buddies and partners, and Ronon wasn't exactly sure whether he was breaking etiquette by saying what he'd observed. John's face closed, eyes hiding what he felt, mouth angry, and he jerked, trying to get his hands free. "You think I care? Where I come from, guys who'd been buddies this long, seen each other to the edge of death and back, they'd take the next step."

"Toasters?" John asked, twisting the word so it sounded like the stupidest possible thing. Ronon only knew toasters to be bread-browning devices, and wondered if John was speaking in metaphors.

"Tattoos," he said, because duh, that should have been obvious, and then added, "Your people exchange toasters?" He knew Jennifer had bought rings for Rodney and herself, but they were northerners, not from where John was from.

John still looked angry and defensive, but his eyebrows cocked in amusement nevertheless. "Matching Satedan friendship tattoos?" he asked, and then shook his head. "I don't think Uncle Sam would approve."

Ronon weighted whether his need to piss was stronger than his need to argue, and decided it was, rolling off John with the feeling that he'd fucked up the conversation somehow. It had just been so good to have someone warm to curl safe against. He still missed touching Melena; she'd been his best buddy since before he joined the Planetary Forces. She'd been soft and curvy under her uniform. Nothing like John. Which was good, Ronon thought.

"You up for a run?" he tossed over his shoulder from the doorway.

John groaned. "No." He sat up. "Yeah. Give me a minute."

Ronon pointed down the hall. "Take your time. Feels like I've got to piss out the ocean."

That startled John into laughing, and Ronon felt relief lighten his shoulders. He liked making John smile.

*

However good it was to be back in Pegasus, helping people, killing Wraith, Ronon felt tired in a way he didn't remember from before. He talked about it with de la Cruz, which kind of helped him figure out what he was sad about and what was pissing him off and what to do about it, which was basically kill more Wraith, spend time with his friends and team, and continue his studies via email. John kept warning him not to get sucked into law school, but Ronon wasn't interested in making laws, just with the idea of making sure people obeyed them. Sateda was gone, but people still needed Specialists, and it looked like he was the last one left.

The nightmares came back; Ronon dealt. He got in the habit of walking down to John's room nights when he had trouble. In the morning, he always told John his longseat sucked for sleeping on, but in the dark he just said _sorry_ when John answered the door bleary-eyed, handing him a blanket and a flask of hot Athosian tea.

John always waved off both the gratitude and the insults.

A few weeks after returning they had a particularly bad mission, when they'd had to extract a team of captured geologists. The casualties were local human insurgents, not Wraith or Wraith worshippers, and John had had to shoot a kid. After debriefing with Woolsey, John had swung by the infirmary to check up on the geologists and the three Marines who'd been injured. Ronon and Teyla had been sitting watch over the unconscious child soldier, talking about what to do with him when he recovered: return him to his people and their war or find him a new home, which he'd probably hate.

John had asked Keller about the boy, and she'd reassured him he'd be fine, in time. John had bitten his lip, shoulders hunched in his filthy uniform jacket, and Teyla told Ronon to go to him. They were all buddies, on the same team, but she knew that he and John balanced each other out, understood parts of each other that baffled Rodney and Teyla.

Ronon had intended to ask John if he wanted company that night, but John spoke first, squinting at the wall behind Ronon and saying, "You mind...?"

"Come on, buddy," Ronon said. He dropped his arm over John's shoulders, pulling him close enough that he could steer him through the corridors up to his room.

Inside, he got John stripped down to his underpants and sat him on the stool by the sink to scrub the dirt off his face and hands. John mumbled in protest up until the towel hit his face, but then he went silent, even when Ronon scrubbed the mud out from behind his ears. When Ronon was done John gave him a shame-faced look and said, "Sorry."

Ronon just snagged a dry towel from the ready-shelf and handed it over. John rubbed his face for too long – hiding, Ronon thought – before balling the towel up.

Ronon figured John might be wondering, so he said, casual, "This is what partners do for each other."

John swallowed hard, but Ronon wasn't going to make the mistake of talking about that, not when John was fucked up.

"Bed," Ronon said firmly. He wrapped John up in the fur quilt and made a pot of tea, stripping and washing while the leaves stewed. Athosian tea was a dark clear red, and the kind Ronon's gran had always brewed was muddy brown, but the smell was almost the same. Teyla said the tea herbs were probably similar. Ronon rubbed down with John's damp towel and then filled the flask. "Usually I sleep naked," he added, letting his voice make it clear this was a question.

There was a pause in John's breathing as he stilled under the quilt. "That a partner thing, too?"

Ronon dug a pair of scrub bottoms out of his clothes-box and stepped into them. He put the tea flask on the table and turned the light off before stretching out next to John, under the quilt.

John didn't say anything after that, and Ronon fell asleep while waiting for John to fall asleep. John might have snored or had nightmares, but he wasn't loud enough to wake Ronon up; when he opened his eyes, fine gray morning light was already filtering through the reed screens on the windows. John was sleeping on his side with his back to Ronon, arms holding the quilt over his head like he was cold.

Ronon had some magazines next to the bed; he was better at reading John's language now, but he liked having pictures to look at when the words didn't make enough sense. He was reading about a group that made lights out of plastic bottles for people with no electricity when John straightened, rolling on his back and pulling the quilt down so he could blink up at the ceiling, confused, getting his bearings.

Ronon said good morning, and bullied John out of bed to go run the long course. John pushed himself hard, breathlessly told Ronon he'd see him at lunch, and then disappeared into work for a few days.

Ronon gave him space, at least until Woolsey called in a few diplomatic debts and had the injured child soldier transferred to a Genii pediatric hospital. Teyla and Lorne's team accompanied Woolsey to the hand-over. John stayed in Atlantis, ostensibly because he had things to do, but when Ronon looked he couldn't find him anywhere. Ronon made Rodney give him a life-signs detector and went hunting. He finally tracked John down on the service balcony outside the reading lounge. There was a great view, and someone had set up tables and chairs as an enticement, but the long drop off the ledge probably scared people away. 

John had his feet up on a table and a book on his stomach, but he'd been either napping or brooding. Ronon dropped into the chair next to him, and John took a long breath in as he turned to say _Hey_ , dropping his feet and straightening, his book sliding to the side.

"There's nothing wrong with needing someone," Ronon said, because John's stubbornness was getting on his nerves. "It doesn't make you weak – "

"Look," John said, and pressed his fingertips together, like an elder about to deliver a lecture. "I don't want to be selfish. It's not fair of me to ask you to give up.... You could have a normal life and be happy."

"Uh-huh." Ronon smiled and leaned back, spreading his knees to claim more space. "Have kids."

"Sure."

"And if I was with a guy and we wanted kids?"

John's eyes narrowed.

Ronon shrugged, rolling his shoulders, flexing his arms. "Plenty of kids need families here. Or maybe you think you're too old for me?" John sucked in a breath, looking angrier now, like he didn't want to snap at Ronon for fucking with him, but the age thing was a low blow. "Seven years running from the Wraith, plenty of things I thought I'd never have. A home, a team with buddies who'd have my back. Someone who understood me without having to talk everything to death." He raised his eyebrows pointedly; John glared back. "Someone who keeps the nightmares away, makes me laugh, eats my cooking. Respects me. Someone I respect back." Ronon leaned forward, fast and deliberate. "And you want to deny that we're partners because you don't think I can take care of my dick by myself? What's that got to do with it?"

John blinked. For a long moment Ronon could see him picking words, thinking them over, discarding them and growing frustrated with his own inability to express what he wanted. Then he said finally, like a question, "We'd move in together."

"We already _have_ ," Ronon pointed out. "You just need to bring your crap over or find a real bed."

"Get matching tattoos."

Ronon rolled his eyes. "Unless you wanted to shock all the old people, yeah."

John coughed, a smile tugging his mouth out of its tense line. "I think the tattoos will definitely shock Woolsey."

Ronon grinned back, showing his teeth. "Good." He pushed off the seat fast, launching forward to grab John around the waist and haul him up into a hug. John went stiff with surprise and kicked out reflexively. In an actual fight, Ronon would have slammed his elbow into John's trachea, but John might have dislocated his shoulder first, or used a chair to knock Ronon off the ledge. Because they were just messing about, Ronon settled for picking John up and swinging him around so John's back came to rest against his chest and they were both staring out over the towers to the ocean. Ronon kept his arms looped around John, and after making a noisy indignant protest, John covered Ronon's hands with his own. He leaned back, shaking silently at first and then snorting with contagious laughter, like he'd finally let himself let go of his doubts and believe.

*

"Hey," Ronon said, looking up from the computer when John returned from Woolsey's fancy formal dinner. A group of Genii nurse-trainees were doing an exchange scheme; Radim and the heads of two Genii hospitals had accompanied them to the opening ceremony, and Woolsey had impressed on John the importance the Genii placed on rank and uniforms, especially uniforms shiny with insignia. John had grumbled the whole time he got dressed, complaining about the stiffness of his shirt and the way the black shoes pinched. Ronon had kept his mouth shut, trying not to hear the ghost of Carson's tribal funeral music, which was what John's uniform reminded him of.

"Radim makes me feel like I'm compromising myself just saying hello," John said, hanging his jacket up and unlacing his shoes so he could step out of them. "So I couldn't even tune out all the boring stuff because it might have been a trap."

Ronon grinned and swiveled the chair around. He crossed his arms and gave John a _look_. "I knew it would suck. Good thing I told Woolsey no. I had a great evening." He'd spent his free time catching up with the coursework for the classes he was following, stuff about law enforcement and human rights, asking Radek and Lorne questions about their countries over dinner, and then screwing around with the Satedan word processor Rodney had programmed for him.

"Fun without me?" John asked, half mock-hurt and half mock-threatening. He removed his trousers, slid them onto a hanger, and then rubbed at his hair, which he'd forced nearly flat. Kanaan had cut it a few days ago – he was making a lot of money from the Earth people; he and Teyla were saving to build a school for Torren, and John always joked that they'd have to name a classroom for his hair alone. With the sides short, Ronon could see how gray John was getting. He bet the Genii thought John looked respectable. They just never saw him the way Ronon did, in his underwear, pulling off his socks by the toes and scratching his stomach, comfortable.

Ronon rolled to his feet and gave John a smug grin, moving towards him with his center of gravity low, like a prowl. John raised a questioning eyebrow. "You should take your shirt off," Ronon told him.

John moved back, challenge accepted. "Make me."

Ronon liked when John was bored and eager to burn off the restlessness. "Sure," Ronon said, smile widening. "Easy. Saw Torren take you down the other day."

"Torren's a big tough preschooler," John said, moving in an arc to avoid Ronon's approach and keep from getting cornered or trapped by furniture this time. "An old guy like me doesn't stand a chance."

"Yeah, you're pretty soft," Ronon agreed, and made a fast grab for John's arm. John just barely twisted away, bare feet quick on the floor, ducking around Ronon's counter-move.

"I've seen snails faster than that," John taunted, expression exhilarated with competitiveness.

"Probably." Ronon faked a move to the left so he could catch John off guard with a sweep of his leg that pulled John's ankle out from under him. Instead of falling backwards, the way McKay still did, John let himself deliberately unbalance forward, using his weight to drag Ronon down, incidentally stabbing his elbow hard into his shoulder. "Ow, fuck."

John pushed himself up in quick contrition, and Ronon flipped them over, straddling John's waist. "I win."

"You _cheat_ ," John countered, grabbing for Ronon's wrists. Ronon got his thumbs under John's new white undershirt anyway and shoved it up, forcing the material over John's shoulder despite John's squawks and laughter-drowned protests.

"There it is," Ronon said with satisfaction, holding John in place easily with one hand. Ronon leaned down and kissed the tattoo that ran from John's collar-bone to his heart, feeling a deep satisfaction at knowing what the symbols meant, and that he'd put them there – that John'd let him.

"Hell," John said, eyes still framed with laugh-lines, "I don't think you even wanted a boyfriend, you were just in the market for new skin to mark up."

"Yup," Ronon said. He shifted up and kissed John, and then pressed his hand to John's exposed side possessively. "Next one I want to put here." John snorted and pushed his way free, yanking his shirt off over his head and making a disgusted face at the way lint and dust stuck to the polymer gel he'd used to tame his hair. "I'll wash your hair for you," Ronon added, giving John a raise of his eyebrows. "If you say yes."

"Every day for like a _year_ ," John said, pushing to his feet and offering Ronon a hand up. "Tattoos _hurt_."

Ronon let himself be tugged upright and grinned. John hadn't said no. "Every day for ten years."

"Deal," John said, and waved a hand towards the door. "Starting now."

When he was stretched out at the edge of the bath, eyes screwed shut to keep the water out, John asked, "So what's my new tattoo going to say?"

"That you're mine," Ronon said.

John snorted and pointed out that that was what his _first_ tattoo said.

"They're all going to say the same thing," Ronon explained. "Just in different ways."

"Original," John said. His sarcasm implied that it wasn't, but he was smiling to himself, loose-limbed and happy, and Ronon just had to look down to read their names, side by side, written in strongscript on John's skin. It was a simpler design than the tattoo for Ronon's partnership with Melena, but any Satedan seeing it would know what it meant – what he and John meant to each other.

.: .: .: .: .: .: .:  
T h e E n d  
:. :. :. :. :. :. :.

Epilogue Drabble

Rodney and Jennifer gave Ronon a ceremonial toaster the first winter solstice after John moved in, Jennifer handing Ronon the box and Rodney giving John a loaf of bread wrapped in blue ribbon and a painfully suggestive tilt of the eyebrows. John turned bright red with embarrassment and refused to meet anyone's eyes. Jennifer explained that this was a thing that Earth people do. Ronon shrugged and said whatever, and gave them their reciprocal presents. Turned out the toaster made really good toast, so Ronon figured what the hell, he didn't have to understand to enjoy the benefits.


End file.
